


The College of the Holy and Undivided Elements

by Fuhadeza



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-10 20:13:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3302024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fuhadeza/pseuds/Fuhadeza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Korra is overwhelmed by the first formal dinner she goes to at university.</p><p>Cambridge AU! It just sort of happened and now it's seven chapters long, oops.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Matriculation Dinner

**Author's Note:**

> So there's an awful amount of incredibly American university AU out there. (Which, don't get me wrong. I love a good American college AU.) This is my attempt to redress the balance. I've never written an AU before, and the characterisation felt kind of hard - let me know if you feel it doesn't work.
> 
> Just the one chapter at the moment, but I wrote this while procrastinating on the ACTUAL fic I'm trying to write, so more is a distinct possibility. :P

You stare at the cutlery in front of you and try to ignore the fact that you’re out of your depth. There are three knives, three forks, and a spoon for good measure. All in beautiful silver. Then the glasses: four wine glasses of different shapes and sizes clustered protectively around a simple cup which you desperately hope is meant for water, because nothing else on this table is in any way familiar.

At home, you’re used to one knife and one fork.

Then the gong sounds and you remember just in time that this means you need to get up. There is the creaking sound of benches pushed back as the hall rises to its feet, and then someone is reading in Latin. You’re on the other side of the hall, and they’re mumbling besides, but even if you were right next to them you wouldn’t understand a thing.

The first course is served. You don’t recognise it, but the embossed menu names it a carpaccio. You stare down at your food and feel a small despair.

“Start on the outside. Work your way in. Let the serving staff worry about the glasses.”

You look up, and by the candlelight all you get is an impression of long dark hair and amused green eyes. “What makes you think I don’t know that?” you say, and it’s a reflex, but you instantly regret the aggression.

“The fact that none of us knew what to do when we first got here.” She doesn’t seem offended, and you blush a little. “Even,” and she grins, “the posh ones. I had to ask the professor sitting next to me. Trust me, this is better.”

You smile back. “Sorry, I… I mean, this is kinda weird. Thanks.”

“Of course it’s weird.” She winks. “You’ll get used to it.” She turns the nametag in front of her around so you can read it. “I’m Asami.”

“Korra.”

*

The food is delicious. The carpaccio turns out to be thinly sliced raw beef topped with spring onions and wasabi. It’s followed by shoulder of lamb in a rosemary jus with roast potatoes and green beans, then crème brûlée and a cheese course. Asami announces each new wine as it arrives, and you can tell she knows what she’s talking about, but she rolls her eyes when the boy to her left holds forth on the properties of the ‘90 Chateau Zaofu.

You discover the following things about her: she is a second-year PhD student in engineering, she is only at the dinner because she supervises some of the freshers, and she likes things that go fast. She doesn’t seem to care where you’re from or what your parents do, but when you tell her anyway, haltingly, she responds with genuine interest. She does not condescend.

You are quite certain she is incredibly rich.

“Sorry,” you say when the coffee and macarons come round. People have been trickling out early, and your end of the table is nearly empty. “You probably wanted to talk to someone other than me tonight.”

Asami laughs. “Like who? The wine expert sitting next to me?” She takes two of the pistachio macarons and studies them.

“Um, maybe?”

“I came for the free food. You were an unexpected bonus.” She smiles at you and your cheeks flush and you’ve probably had too much to drink but you take another sip of port anyway.

“Should we be going?” you say in lieu of something clever. There are hardly any people left in the hall, and the serving staff have started clearing the tables.

“Sure. Where are you headed?” Asami finishes her macarons, stands up, straightens her gown.

“I was just going to go back to my room, I guess?” you say. Standing up is harder than you remember, and you brace yourself against the table until your head stops spinning.

“Really? No parties, no clubbing?”

You look down. “I don’t… really know anyone.”

Asami is silent. You look up and she is regarding you, and suddenly you realise she’s found you out: you don’t know how you’d fooled her this long, but now she knows you’re not rich, or privileged, or landed, and she’d turn and leave—

“Come on,” she says. “I know a place.”

*

Somehow Asami pilfers a carafe of port and a block of blue cheese and you sit in a small nook of the landscape garden, surrounded on three sides by hedges, the fourth side open facing the river. She’s neglected to steal glasses and you pass the port back and forth, drinking straight from the carafe.

You watch her out of the corner of your eye as she takes her high heels off and rubs her feet. Even then, you’re certain she looks more like she belongs than you ever could: long red dress contrasting with the black of her gown, identical to yours but which on you looks three sizes too large.

“I like your jacket,” she says. “I’ve toyed with going to formal in a suit, but I don’t think it would work on me.”

“Um, thanks,” you say. “I don’t… wear formal clothing often.” _At all_ , you don’t say.

“I never really saw the point either. It’s so inconvenient. How am I supposed to do my job without pockets?” She smooths her dress around her hips in demonstration. “But, you know, it’s fun sometimes.” She smiles. “We can pretend it’s a hundred years ago and we’re all the duchess of this place and the marchioness of some place else.”

“You’re not, are you?” You figure it’s better to get this straight sooner rather than later.

“What?”

“The duchess of somewhere.”

Asami laughs and you flush, but her eyes are alive and she’s not laughing at you. “No.” She pauses. “I did meet a duchess once, though. I liked her. Sensible girl.”

“Asami,” you say, and she turns to look right at you and your heart beats unexpectedly faster. “Um. Thank you. For being normal.” She looks confused and you rush on, words falling nearly out of order. “It’s just that I’d heard horror stories about this place and so far I thought they were true and all the people were horribly stuck up and would hate me.” You’re drunk, but so is she and you’re the only one making a fool of yourself, but you take a breath and keep going anyway. “And you’re probably like a million times richer than I am but honestly I don’t care and it feels like you don’t care too and you have no idea how nice that is right now.” You’re out of breath and Asami is looking at you and you hide your face in your hands.

Then you feel her arm around your shoulders and you let her pull you towards her. “Hey, Korra?”

You nod, face still hidden.

“I won’t lie, there are some people like that around. But not many. Most people are nice, even the rich ones.” She pauses. “Well, as nice as people anywhere.”

You laugh and look up at her, and she’s smiling. “You don’t think I’m a complete idiot?” you say.

“No,” she says. “Don’t worry about it. I know lots of people who felt like you do when they first got here and now they’re perfectly at home.” Her smile widens. “Just remember that no one, no matter what their background, has ever had to stand for a gong before coming here, and you’ll be fine.”

“The gong, though,” you say. “What the _hell_ is up with the gong?”

Then you’re both laughing and you try to stand but it’s a bad idea and you sit back down hard. “Just wait until the first time you’re serenaded by the college choir during dinner,” Asami says, “and you’ll yearn for the simple days of the gong.”

She helps you up and you lean precariously against her. “So, uh, where are we, exactly?” you say.

“I’ll help you back to your room,” Asami says and waves away your objections. “Where do you live?”

“The Kyoshi Building,” you say. “Room D11.” You frown. “Or D12? I don’t know.”

By the time you reach the Kyoshi Building you have a feeling it might be room G7 and Asami has to look over all the nameplates to work out you’re actually in A1. You manage to get the door open and stop, one foot over the threshold, looking back at her. You have nothing left to say, but suddenly you’re filled with the certain terror that you’ll wake up in the morning, bright and sober, and find you have no friends again.

Then Asami says, “I’m in Roku Court, E staircase. Drop by any time, if you like.”

*

The Matriculation Dinner is a trial by fire, but it’s a trial you pass.

You’d have gone for the free food, but when Asami smiles at you in farewell and turns away, you think—maybe there’s an unexpected bonus, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't decide whether to make it a fictional college in actual Cambridge or a fictional version of Cambridge in the Avatar world. Solution: don't bother specifying!
> 
> (It's definitely not Oxford.)


	2. Start of Term

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes Asami is right, and things are nicer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently second person just kind of writes itself.

The next morning you’re ten minutes late seeing your director of studies and you’re pretty sure he can tell you’re hungover but you don’t mind because you wake up and everything has changed. It’s as if talking to Asami has changed a setting in your head, and you see everyone a little differently: you’re on your way to your first lecture and suddenly you realise that in this bubble world where everyone is stranger and potential friend all at once all it takes to be included is to want to be included. When you leave the lecture theatre with a small group from your college two boys walk past, all brogues and elbow-patches and over-loud thoughts on classical philosophy, and you exchange looks and stifled laughter with the girl to your left.

And there are the people you had feared, the snide-look, sleazy-arrogant people, but you see they are a dying breed, abandoned by peers who roll eyes behind their backs. They drift with their own in circles you have no interest in ever joining, and it occurs to you high above you is the best place for them, well out of sight and out of the way.

And you make friends.

*

You knock loudly but it takes seconds before anyone responds and you start to feel anxious that maybe you’d got the time or the place wrong some time in the last flurry of e-mail, but then Dr. Tenzin opens the door and beckons you in and you’re too busy staring at his office. There’s wooden panelling and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a beautiful view of Roku Court, but there’s also a bowl full of individually-wrapped chocolates, the kind you can buy in bulk, and you relax.

“Thanks, Professor,” you say.

Tenzin smiles. “Doctor will do, if you insist, but you’re welcome to call me Tenzin.” There’s another knock at the door and Tenzin rises to answer.

You take the opportunity to take a chocolate and then your supervision partner is sitting down opposite you and you recognise her from lectures and wrack your brain for her name.

“Hi,” she says. “I don’t think we were properly introduced. I’m Opal.”

You shake her proffered hand and she smiles. “I’m Korra.”

Tenzin claps his hands together and sits at the head of the table. “We’ve got a lot of boring admin to get through in a minute,” he says, “but let’s start by getting to know one another. So, Korra, Opal. Why do you want to study history?”

Opal glances at you as if unsure whether he really wanted you to speak, but it’s a question you were asked at interview and it was easy enough then. “When I was younger,” you begin, “I read some old diaries I found on sale.” You shrug. “They were by totally random people, not relatives or anything, all sorts really. But it felt like I was living them. Like, I dunno, they were past lives and by reading them it was like I was remembering what the past was like.” You ignore the niggling feeling that this story sounds silly. “So here I am.”

Tenzin smiles at you and turns to Opal. “Well, um, I’m from kind of a small town.” She tucks a strand of hair behind one ear. “My family have been living there forever, we had a hand in founding it. So I’ve always known quite a lot about local history. And I guess I thought it would be fun to have a go at the big picture.”

“Well,” Tenzin says. “Those are genuinely better answers than I was expecting.” You laugh, and then he launches into a detailed description of the course and the exam structure and the supervision schedule and it’s dull but you don’t mind. And the second half of the supervision is better: you barely realise Tenzin is teaching you, because it’s less a lesson and more a conversation in which you are three equal partners, and it’s nice because you’ve never been what you might call traditionally academic.

He sets an essay and Opal groans, but Tenzin only smiles implacably as he ushers you out. Afterwards you and Opal go for coffee, and you think that this is what university is supposed to be like.

*

A week later you lock yourself out of your room for the first time and wonder how you ever found self-locking doors convenient. You put on your best nonchalant face and march into the porter’s lodge.

“Hi,” you say. “I need a spare key.”

The porter on duty snaps to attention. “Right! Room number?” He doesn’t look much older than you. You tell him, and he starts opening cupboards behind him and rummaging through rows of keys. Finally he turns back to you and hands you the key. “Sorry. I’m still getting used to where everything is.”

You thank him, let yourself back into your room, make triply sure you have your keys, and return the spare. The porter glances up from his work and smiles.

Three days later you’re making toast and maybe you forget to take it out while you take a shower and then the fire alarm is going off and you’re rushing to get dressed and out of the building. You spend a good half an hour shivering in the cold of the antechapel with the other students from your floor and then the same porter is waiting for you in your room.

“Were you making toast?” You nod. “Did you leave it unattended?”

You both glance at the blackened char he has rescued from the gyp room. “No,” you say with a straight face. “I like it burnt.”

He stares at you. “Miss, this is a serious matter. You could have started a fire.” He looks very stern and you struggle not to laugh because frankly you can’t take someone your age in a bowler hat seriously. He sighs. “Fine. Next time, take it out earlier,” and you’re free.

Next Wednesday you and Opal are celebrating the end of Week 3 and a particularly successful supervision and for some reason Opal has acquired a pair of water guns. You have her in your sights halfway down the South Lawn and then she dodges left but it’s too late and there’s someone behind her—

“ _You again!_ ” He wipes wet hair back from his brow and you think you caught him in the eye.

You make a run for it. Opal follows, laughing, until you think you’ve lost him in an out-of-the-way corner of the Fellows’ Garden. “What was that about?” she asks.

“I think,” you say, “I’m never getting a favour from the porters again.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She grins. “I heard some of the other porters talking. That one’s new, he takes everything really seriously. I think his name is Mako?”

*

And you remember: E staircase.

You consider leaving it be: already the night of Matriculation Dinner seems like another person’s dream, and you could just let her be the key that once used isn’t needed again. But that wouldn’t be fair, so you’re standing in front of her door with a box of chocolates.

She answers on the third knock and she looks tired but she smiles and you’re embarrassed you ever considered not seeing her again.

“Hey,” you say. “Is this a bad time?”

“No, not at all!” She moves away from the door. “Come in.” She moves a pile of paper from a chair and motions you to sit down. “I’ve been pretty busy the last few weeks, sorry about the mess.” You’re halfway to an apology when she cuts you off. “No, it’s okay, I need a break.”

“Sorry it’s taken me so long,” you say.

She smiles. “I’ll forgive you if you tell me it’s because you’ve been too busy enjoying your first weeks of college life.”

You grin. “Something like that.” You look around and her room suddenly registers with you. There’s a small kitchen area in the corner, the ceilings are high and wood-beamed and the windows tall and bright, and you think you see a staircase leading up against the far wall. “Um, wow.”

“The benefits of seniority.” She glances away.

“Oh! Um.” You hold out the box of chocolates. “For you. I really appreciate what you did for me, and, well, thank you. I think I would have been miserable otherwise.”

She takes them from you. “Thank you, Korra. But you really didn’t have to. It was my pleasure.”

You shrug one shoulder. “I wanted to.”

She meets your eyes and you blush a little. “So, how have you been?”

You tell her about Opal and Tenzin and your misadventures with Mako the porter and she laughs at all the right moments and she seems to care even though hundreds of other freshers must have stories just like them.

“And I gave rowing a shot,” you say. “It was really fun, but I’ve heard they want you to wake up at, like, four in the morning.”

“Only if you’re really serious about it. You can just do it for fun.”

“That sounds good.”

She smiles. “See, I told you you’d get used to it.”

“Yeah. I guess I just had to realise that… well, it’s really weird, but the people are pretty normal.”

She raises a hand in a _so-so_ gesture and you laugh, and then the belltower in Roku Court is ringing five o’clock and you have to go because you’ve told Opal you’ll meet her for dinner.

Asami shows you out and stands in the doorway as you start down the stairs. “Korra, wait.” You look up. “Hand me your phone?” You pass it to her and watch as she enters her contact details. “If you’re bored.” She smiles. “And feel like hanging out with an old woman.”

*

You pocket your phone and spend the evening stepping lightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does Korra row? Hell yes Korra rows. (I've never set foot in a boathouse though so maybe she can row off-screen. :D)
> 
> I ran into the problem of having to decide what exactly it is that Korra studies. Nothing jumped out, but hopefully my justification works. Also, I was wondering why every single college AU seems to feature Opal, and then I tried to think of someone else their age and now I know. (That's okay. Opal is my favourite Beifong.)


	3. Week Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Korra is sad, and it would be fine if she only knew why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glossary corner: the JCR (Junior Combination Room) is the college student union. (I have no idea how much terminology I need to explain. If something is unclear do ask.)

One evening in Week Five you’re talking to your parents online and you feel as happy as you have since you got here. The time difference is large enough that you haven’t had much of an opportunity to talk to them, but now you’re catching them up on the first half of term and you can tell that they’ve been worried about you.

“I’m fine, mum,” you say for the third time. “Really.”

“I know, dear,” Senna says. “But you can’t blame us for asking.”

“Maybe one of these days,” you say, “you’ll work out that I always end up okay.” You grin and don’t say how close you came to not being okay in the slightest.

Tonraq laughs. “As long as your being okay doesn’t involve punching anyone.”

“Come on, I haven’t got into a fight in _years_.”

“Well, a year,” Senna says.

“If we’re rounding up.” Tonraq leans forward a little, his face fuzzy on the screen. “But now, the most important question: have you met anyone?”

You roll your eyes. “No, dad, I haven’t met anyone.” Senna laughs in the background and it all feels so familiar you can’t help but join her and soon all three of you are gasping for breath.

“Okay, Korra,” Tonraq says after you’ve recovered. “We should get going. Be good, kid.”

“Maybe don’t wait another five weeks to talk to us properly,” Senna says but she’s smiling.

“I will. Love you.” And then Senna leans toward you and the picture freezes and goes black.

Half an hour later you’re lying in bed, sobbing, and you couldn’t possibly say why.

*

There’s a knock at the door and you’re not sure how much time has passed but the floor is littered with tissues where you’ve missed the bin. You consider staying in bed until whoever it is goes away but there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to cry yourself to sleep for no reason so you get up, wipe your eyes on the back of your sleeve as best you can, and open the door.

Asami’s smile wavers when she sees you. “Hey, are you okay?” You blink stupidly at her and she says, “I’m sorry, I can leave, if you prefer.” And then you’re shaking your head because maybe you’ve only texted a bit and had tea together once but suddenly there is nothing in the world you want less than to see her leave.

She sits down on the bed while you scramble around clearing the floor. “I don’t mean to intrude,” she says. “I just thought you might like some company.”

“How did—” Your voice is still full of tears and you clear your throat and try again. “How did you know?”

“It’s Week Five. Everyone feels a bit shit in Week Five. Especially in their first term.” Asami looks at you and you feel bad for hoping she’s worried. “But I didn’t think— I mean, it’s a thing people say so the JCR has an excuse to leave chocolates in everyone’s pigeonholes.”

You sit down next to her, knees up against your chest, and Asami shifts towards you a little. “You didn’t think I’d be lying in bed crying my eyes out?” You try to keep your voice away from bitterness, because it’s not her fault and you’re trying hard to act like this is a thing everyone does on spare weekday evenings.

She glances at you, but you think her eyes are full of concern, not discomfort. “Yeah.”

“And you don’t mind?”

She hesitates a second and you can see her actually considering the question. “No,” she says, “I don’t mind.” Somehow this is more reassuring than if she’d answered immediately. “Do you want to talk about it?”

You sigh. “Yeah. I guess. I don’t know what there is to talk about.” You lean into her automatically, and for a second you panic, but she just puts an arm around you carefully and she’s soft and comfortable and you don’t really care if this is too much. “One minute I was talking to my family and the next I was crying and I just couldn’t stop, and I don’t know why!” 

You’re speaking faster and faster but Asami only laughs. “Korra, you’re homesick.”

“What?” You laugh and turn your head away. “No, I’m not. I don’t get homesick.”

Asami turns her head to look down at you and her hair brushes against your cheek. You feel yourself growing warm. “Have you ever moved country before?” she asks.

“Well, no, but…”

“Your life just changed completely. New country, new people, new responsibilities.” She smiles. “New independence. It’s exciting to begin with, so you don’t notice as much, but then you start realising this is really it, and that’s when the homesickness gets you.”

A dozen denials spring to mind but Asami is looking at you and you sigh. “You’re speaking from experience.”

“Yeah,” she says, “I am. My family moved around a lot when I was younger.”

“But… I mean, I’m actually _enjoying_ myself. I like my course, I actually have friends. I think I’ve even managed to win that porter over.” You pause. “I have you.” You think you hear Asami’s breath catch but you keep talking. “It just feels so _stupid_. My life is good right now, so why am I suddenly so sad?”

“You just need to get used to it,” Asami says. “It’s a massive change. You need time to get over it, even if it’s a good change.” She strokes your hair idly and you breathe shallow breaths. “Think of it this way: your mind needs to adapt to a completely different set of expectations about your life. About what your daily life looks like. That’s not something that’s going to happen immediately.”

You’re silent for a minute, because something about what she’s saying is actually making sense. “I guess I’m just frustrated,” you say eventually. “Like, I was prepared to come here and hate it and be sad about that. I wasn’t prepared to come here and _like_ it and still be sad.”

“It’ll get better soon,” she says. “Promise.” She grins down at you. “And, Korra, it’s okay to be homesick.”

You laugh, and it’s embarrassing, but really you don’t mind. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She turns away for a moment. “I brought a bottle of wine. I’m not sure if it’s quite appropriate right now, but…”

“No,” you say, “that would be perfect.”

You get up and rummage on the sideboard for a pair of serviceable glasses while Asami takes a corkscrew out of her pocket and uncorks the bottle. “I see you came prepared,” you say.

“You’d be surprised how many students don’t have a corkscrew.” She looks you in the eye. “It is, frankly, a travesty.” She manages to hold the look a moment longer and then you’re both laughing and she nearly spills the wine as she pours out glasses for you both. “This is a nice, straightforward red,” Asami says seriously. “Bold. No subtlety. Like you.” You glare at her and she smiles. “Can’t be subtle with Week Five.” She raises her glass to yours and looks you in the eye. “To homesickness.”

“To homesickness,” you echo. You take a sip and hold the glass up to the light, eyes narrowed in mock concentration. “I’m getting… grapes?”

Asami laughs. “Careful. Your sophisticated palate might make me swoon.” She takes a sip and swirls her wine around in its glass. “Do you like it?”

You take another sip and it’s sharp and warm and comfortable. “Yeah,” you say. “I think I do.” You consider your glass. “Is ‘bold’ code for ‘highly alcoholic’?”

“Maybe.” She tops up her glass. “I’m glad you like it. I had to guess, I thought maybe you might prefer white…”

“Asami,” you say, “I know virtually nothing about wine. I’ll take your judgement over mine.”

You sit in companionable silence and measure time by the level of wine remaining. You watch Asami out of the corner of your eye and her profile when she raises the glass to her lips is a near-perfect thing made perfect by your rumpled sheets. “You said you moved around a lot when you were young,” you say softly. “What do your parents do?” She looks at you and there’s an odd look in her eyes and you can’t tell if she resents the question. “Sorry,” you say quickly. “I just want to know more about you.”

Instead of answering she says, “Maybe my reasons for coming here weren’t entirely selfless,” and you realise she’s asking permission. Before you can think better of it you take her hand in yours and intertwine your fingers, you move closer to her until your shoulders are touching.

“You listened to me,” you say.

Asam takes a small breath. “My mum was a writer,” she says. “My dad was an inventor.” Silence. “She died when I was six. He died last summer.”

You’d been expecting it but you still don’t know how to react, so you squeeze her hand and say, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Asami sighs. “I say he was an inventor, but that’s just how I prefer to remember him. Really he was a businessman first, and…” The corner of her mouth twitches into a sad smile. “Businessmen don’t really make good fathers. Even when he was alive I didn’t see much of him.” She shrugs and you are acutely aware of her shoulder against yours. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to put you on the spot. I just wanted you to know, and there’s really no elegant way of saying it.”

You can’t tell which emotion is genuine, her discomfort or her nonchalance, and you’ve always been direct. “Why?”

“What?”

“Why did you want me to know?” Asami looks uncertain and it’s so unexpected you nearly laugh. “It’s not that I mind,” you add before she can speak. ”I just mean… This is only the fourth time we’ve hung out.”

“Oh,” Asami says and she might be taller than you but now she looks so small and you start to feel guilty. “I don’t… really have many close friends. Usually I’m okay alone.” She moves her head slightly and her hair covers her face. “But I just find you so easy to talk to, and I thought…”

You nudge her. “Hey, it’s okay.”

She tucks her hair back and smiles at you. “I thought I’d give not being alone a go.”

“How’s that working out for you?” You grin at her and she laughs.

“It’s nice.” She runs a hand down her arm. “So, yeah, I thought you should know why I’m a bit… I don’t know, maudlin.”

The bottle is nearly empty, but you pour out the rest of it and raise your glass. “To being maudlin together.” The clink of the glass echoes thinly. “And, Asami? You’re easy to talk to, too. I’m glad you came over.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. So maybe we’ve only talked four times.” You meet her eyes. “But, whatever, friendship is weird. And I’m really happy that you’re my friend.”

Asami looks back at you and there’s a look in her eyes and you worry for a moment that you’ve said something wrong but then she smiles. “So am I.”

*

After she leaves you lie awake for a little while and think of your conversation with your parents, and on the edge of sleep you find yourself wondering if you were telling the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea what happens in the next chapter yet, so I might slow down a bit now, but I figured there was no point holding off given I'd finished this chapter.
> 
> I'd just like to thank everyone for reading and commenting and being nice - I'm really, really not in the habit of sharing anything I write publicly, and it's just really heartening having people like it. So, yeah, thanks. :D (Also thanks to Alimere, who helped me out with bits of this in fairly meticulous detail, and without whom the tone would be pretty off.)


	4. Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Korra isn't quite sure where she'll be spending the holidays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay! I was away for a couple of days. On the plus side I think I know where this is going now, so maybe I will finish it soon! That would be cool, I've never finished anything before.

Your life changes a little after that, and Asami fits into it smoothly. A part of you wants to keep her to yourself, like a character in a book whose every appearance is filled with portent, but the real world is a different shape and so you introduce her to your friends and soon they are her friends as well.

The rest of term passes in comfortable routine. Your life revolves from lecture theatre to library to Tenzin’s study by way of the college bar or the pub down the road. The first time you go for drinks with Asami she hustles the rest of you at pool and spends the rest of the week buying rounds to recoup lost goodwill.

One day in Week 7 you’re in the college bar and it’s the sort of nearly-there day where everyone _should_ be working but Week 8 is so gloriously close none of you can muster the willpower. It’s quiet and Asami has played the PhD card and called it an early night and now Opal is at the bar, getting a drink or flirting with the bartender or both, and you’re alone with Mako. None of you are quite sure why Mako chooses to spend time with you, or whether he is strictly speaking supposed to, but you’re pretty sure he’s not on duty and once you get used to having a porter around sans bowler hat he’s pretty good company.

There’s a burst of laughter at the bar and the bartender strikes a pose that says he’s not quite sure what he did but he’s glad it was the right thing.

Mako snorts. “I can’t believe his spiel is actually working on someone.”

You sink deeper into your couch and roll your eyes. “She’s been making eyes at him for weeks. I think he could say just about anything and it would work.”

Mako crosses his arms. “I refuse to accept my little brother is better at this than I am.”

Your drink is halfway to your mouth and you barely avoid spilling it all over your jacket. “Bolin’s your _brother_?”

“Sure.” Mako looks confused. “Can’t you tell?”

You look from one to the other. “No. Not really.” You squint at Bolin behind the bar. “What’s with his eyebrows?”

Mako laughs. “He takes after our father.” You watch Bolin and Opal talking a little longer and then Mako says, “Hey, Korra, what’re you doing this Friday?”

Bolin is juggling limes. “No plans yet. Why?”

“D’you want to go somewhere with me?”

Suddenly you’re giving him your full attention. “What, like a date?” You’re surprised by the sharpness in your voice but Mako doesn’t seem to notice.

“Yeah, I thought… I like you, and I think we’d work well together.”

You take a breath. “Mako, I’m sorry, but—”

“Is this because I’m a porter?”

You don’t think so. “No! Look, I’m flattered and all—”

Mako leans forward in his chair, intent on you. “Why then? Can’t you just give it a shot?”

“Mako, will you _stop_ interrupting me!”

“Is there someone else?”

“I— that doesn’t matter! I just don’t want to.” You’re breathing quickly and Mako leans back a little. “Look, I like you, you’re a friend, but I just don’t see you that way, okay? And I’m sorry, but I’m not going to help you outdo your brother.”

Mako sighs and closes his eyes and you wonder whether that last might have been a little unfair, but then he’s looking at you again. “Korra, I’m sorry. You’re right.” He rubs his temples. “I just thought— never mind. I was being a dick.” He glances at you. “Forgive me?”

You smile in relief, because honestly you like Mako but you really don’t want to have to deal with this and you have the sneaking suspicion he’d make a terrible boyfriend anyway. “Yeah. Just don’t do it again?”

He nods and then Opal is there, frowning, but Bolin has closed the bar and he has one last round of drinks for you so the moment passes by. By the time you’re ready to leave Opal is lying all over him and you and Mako exchange glances and try not to laugh and you relax again.

*

And then it’s the last week of term and you’re at Christmas formal and everyone is a little drunk and conversation turns to the upcoming holidays.

“What do you _mean_ you don’t really get holidays?” Opal is staring at Asami in horror.

Asami shrugs. “I mean, I’m taking Christmas and New Year’s off. But I recommend you enjoy your six week breaks while they last.” She turns to you as Opal comes to terms with this revelation. “How about you, Korra? Going home?”

You swallow your bite of turkey hastily. “Um, no. It’s actually cheaper for me to just stay here.” Not long ago you would have been uncomfortable saying it so openly, but at this time, in this company, you know it doesn’t matter. “My parents have made me promise to come home next year, but really I don’t mind spending the holidays here.”

Across the table Asami smiles at you but Opal has transferred the full force of her horror to you. “Living here over Christmas? That’s downright depressing.” She pauses. “No offence, Asami. You actually have something to do, it doesn’t count.”

The gong goes and you all stand automatically as the Fellows leave High Table and file out their private door. You sit back down and Opal keeps talking as if nothing had happened. “Korra, you should come stay with us. I have four siblings, my parents won’t even notice.” She grins. “And you can bribe us all with presents you’ll be able to buy with the money you save on rent.”

You make polite noises of refusal but Opal won’t have any of it. She grinds you down with the energetic implacability of someone who has made a decision and is now informing the affected party. You glance at Asami and she’s laughing silently but she meets your eyes and shrugs a little and you give in. “If you’re sure your parents won’t mind…”

“They won’t mind.” Opal grins and her infectious enthusiasm finally gets to you. You spend the rest of dinner paying half-attention to Asami as she tries to bring your increasingly unlikely plans back down to earth.

*

Opal has none of Asami’s effortless elegance and it’s easy to forget that of the two of them Opal is the one who’s really old money. The car that picks you up from the train station and winds its way through small country roads is the first clue, and then the house is in sight and you’re staring. The Beifong estate is set well back from the road but it looms in 19th century finery, wings sweeping left and right atop its hill. From its roof, a confection of metal and glass unfolds like a giant lotus flower and you look at Opal questioningly.

She smiles a little, and in a rush of inverted expectations you realise she’s self-conscious. “Dad’s an architect. A very _modern_ architect. He designed the additions.” She shrugs. “Don’t worry, it’s a lot more normal on the inside.”

You count no fewer than three fountains before you’re finally up the wide stone steps and standing before the main entrance, but you’ve lived two months surrounded by the grandeur of the most beautiful college in the country and you take it all in and grin at Opal. “It’s beautiful.”

Then you’re inside and there’s a flurry of introductions, and you’re quite certain you’ll need at least a week to remember everyone’s names but Opal’s mother stands out in a blur of impeccable stillness as she shows you to your room, across from Opal’s in the west wing.

“Thank you, Suyin,” you say once you’ve made a ceremonial start unpacking by tossing your bag down on the bed.

“It’s always a pleasure to meet my children’s friends.” She winks. “And you can call me Su.”

*

The next few weeks pass in a blur. You go on long walks in the grounds and beyond, across miles and miles of idyllic countryside. Opal’s father corners you into a discussion about metamaterials and you smile and nod and make a mental note to ask Asami what he’s talking about. You take a day trip into the city, and one of Opal’s brothers takes it upon himself to give you a tour of the museum of modern art, and then Opal takes you shopping and points out, in a gentle, subtle way, what her family might like.

You and Opal studiously ignore the pile of work you’ve been assigned.

You can’t quite work out what it is Su does, but she talks about everything from choreography to urban planning with an air of great confidence, and when you mention your course she asks about it with real interest.

Christmas dinner is like a miniature formal and the next day you find your wardrobe enhanced in a number of tasteful ways and when you tell Su she didn’t have to she only laughs and points at the bottle of whiskey you’ve given her.

“Thanks,” you say to Opal later when you’re sitting outside with glasses of champagne watching the sun go down. “For inviting me. You guys make a good proxy family.”

Opal takes a sip. “I’m glad,” she says. “I was worried you’d think they’re a bit strange.”

“Well,” you say, “I wouldn’t say they’re not _strange_ …” She laughs and shoves you playfully and you nearly overbalance and drop your glass. “I wonder what Asami is doing,” you say after a while. “I hope she’s not lonely.”

Opal smiles at you and raises an eyebrow teasingly.

“What? We're just friends.”

Her smile widens.

*

Early on New Year’s Eve you watch from a window as a motorcycle sprays gravel out in front of the house. You’ve never seen her drive before but you’re sure it’s her even before she takes her helmet off and you watch transfixed as she shakes her hair out.

Su comes out to greet her and you realise that compared to Asami you may as well be an awkward teenager come round on a playdate.

“Well,” Opal says that evening. The three of you are out on the roof whiling the last hours of the year away. “You thoroughly charmed my mother.”

Asami laughs. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

You watch the fountain below you refracting moonlight and then Opal excuses herself to go and get more drinks. You give Asami her Christmas present and watch nervously as she unwraps it. It’s a framed print from the futurist exhibition at the museum and she laughs and hugs you until you relax.

“I’ve got something for you, too,” she says. “But it’s more of an experience.” She smiles. “You’ll have to wait until we’re back in term.”

Before you can say anything Opal is back and you barely notice when the year passes in a riot of laughter and tipsy declamations.

*

Later that night, before you go to bed, you talk to your parents.

“So, have you met anyone?” Tonraq says ritually before you hang up.

You look to the side. “Maybe.”

Their reaction is transmitted as a wall of white noise and you cover your ears until they calm down.

“When do we get to meet her?” Tonraq asks.

You open your mouth to reply and then his words catch up with you and you freeze and all you can say is, “How—?”

Tonraq laughs in delight.

“We didn’t know.” Senna smiles. “But how would you have felt if we’d assumed it was a boy?”

*

You meant what you said to Opal. But as you get under the covers, Senna’s words wrap themselves around you like a second blanket and you smile and think that sometimes proxy families just aren’t as good as the real thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I attempt to summarise Korra and Mako's relationship in a single conversation. Did that work? I don't even know.


	5. Punting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Korra and Asami go punting. One of them is good at it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I shouldn't do: say I might finish something, because then this happens and I take forever to write. Sorry!
> 
> (Glossary corner: the three terms are Michaelmas, Lent, and Easter. If you think that's bad, Oxford's are Michaelmas, Hilary, and Trinity.)

You spend the last days before the start of Lent Term frantically writing the three essays Tenzin set over Christmas break. A week later, in your first supervision, Tenzin raises an eyebrow as he hands them back to you in order of increasingly bad handwriting: seventy-five, sixty-five, fifty-five. But he offers you tea anyway and after spending a month in Opal’s company the supervision feels more than ever like an afternoon’s hour among friends.

One weekend you drag your friends down to the river to watch Bumps and explain amidst punctuated cheers that, yes, the boats are actually _trying_ to crash into each other.

“I don’t get it,” Opal says. “It sounds dangerous.”

“It isn’t usually,” you say, and notice this doesn’t convince her.

“Who on Earth came up with it?”

“Students,” Asami puts in. “Drunk students. A hundred years ago.”

Opal nods as if nothing could be clearer.

Lent Term ticks on with none of the ups and downs of Michaelmas. Week Five comes and goes and you barely note its passing. 

And you have found something like a life to replace the sequence of experiences that made up your first months here.

*

One unseasonably warm Saturday in early March Asami shows up at your door carrying a basket. “It’s Christmas,” she announces.

And you’d thought, maybe, that she’d forgotten, and told yourself you didn’t mind. But the relief that runs through you puts the lie to that. “Where are we going?” you ask.

“Well,” she says, “it’s a bit early in the year, but I think it’s warm enough. We are going punting.” She flourishes the basket. Her clothes are more casual than you’re used to seeing on her.

“Just the two of us?”

Asami grins. “Of course just the two of us.” She steps away from the door and gestures dramatically and you laugh, grab your jacket, and follow her outside.

The river flows past the far side of college, and you make the walk through Roku Court and Yangchen Court in silence. “Let me get this straight,” you say as you approach the punthouse. “Your Christmas present to me is something that requires a warm day?”

Asami laughs. “I admit. A tactical error.” She nods at the moored punts. “The punthouse isn’t even open yet. I had to bribe one of the porters to let me take a punt out.”

“Did you really?”

“No.” Asami steps carefully into the nearest punt and stows the basket at the bow. The college punts are all named with reference to the elements, and you see that yours is _Fire Sermon_. “But it sounds more dramatic that way. I just asked Mako.” She sets about undoing the chain tying the punt up. “Grab one of the poles and get in, would you?”

The pole must be at least fifteen feet long and you maneuver it awkwardly as you step into the punt. It lies low in the water and rocks dangerously, but Asami seems unfazed as she accepts the pole from you and takes up position on the small platform at the rear.

You eye her suspiciously. “Are you sure this is seaworthy?”

“No,” she says. “But it’s definitely riverworthy.” Then she’s got the pole in the water and she takes the punt out in slow, smooth movements. You sit down quickly and it rocks again, but then Asami is poleing you forward and the punt balances out. “They’re actually quite hard to sink,” Asami adds.

You consider this. “I’ve never been in one before.” You pause. “Can I try?”

Asami laughs. “Maybe on the way back. It’ll be easier with the wind behind us.”

“Hey! I bet I could take the wind.”

Asami rolls her eyes. “I’m sure you could,” she says. “But anyway, this is a present. Let me chauffeur you.”

And you do. It really is warm, and even the wind is a pleasant pressure on your skin. You lie back in the spacious middle of the punt and watch Asami. You’d never really noticed how strong she was before, but watching her handle the pole you realise there must be quite a lot of power behind each stroke. Her arms are bare, and you watch the smooth oak slip through her fingers as she lets the pole find ground on the riverbed.

“Penny for your thoughts?” If Asami is out of breath it doesn’t show.

“I like your muscles,” you say idly, and then your brain catches up and you have to restrain yourself from clapping a hand over your mouth.

Asami raises an eyebrow. “Thanks,” she says. “I do martial arts.” There’s the hint of a smile around her eyes and for some reason you feel your face flushing. “I like your muscles too,” she adds, and now she _is_ smiling and you groan and close your eyes so you can pretend you’re somewhere else.

“You’re missing the scenery,” Asami says. “Look, there are moorhen chicks.”

You open your eyes and look around. “Where?”

“It’s March, Korra.” Asami grins. “But baby birds work on you. Good to know.”

You try to glare at her, but you’re not sure it comes out quite right. Instead you cross your arms and appreciate the scenery. One bank slopes gently into pastures and the odd cow looks at you curiously as the punt slides by. The other is lined with trees interrupted by the occasional half-ruined wall.

“Like what you see?”

“It feels like there’s no else around.” You smile. “Just us.”

“I did say just the two of us.” She ducks to avoid a low-hanging branch. “Trust me, though, in summer the whole river would be full of punts.” Ahead the river branches, and Asami steers you carefully into the smaller channel. “But tourists don’t come out here, and colleges don’t open their punthouses for another month or so.”

“Not that I’m complaining,” you say, “but are we going anywhere in particular?”

“Funny you should ask,” Asami says. Then you round a bend and see a tiny island in the middle of the river, barely larger than a double bed. There’s a small tree and, improbably, an even tinier pier sticking out into the river.

You watch as Asami slows the punt down, then stows the pole and jumps to shore with assured expertise. “You’re good at this,” you say as she secures the chain through a loop set into the pier.

Asami shrugs. “I like things that move. Cars, motorcycles, planes.” She glances up and smiles. “Punts.”

“But you don’t row.”

She makes a face. “Eight people to a boat? No thanks. I like being in control.” She steps back into the punt, grabs the basket, and reaches down to help you to unsteady feet.

“A picnic?” you say when she opens the basket to reveal a checkered blanket.

“Nothing less.” She lays the blanket out carefully. It covers nearly the entire surface area of the island.

You sit down and watch as she busies herself emptying the picnic basket. There is bread, hummus, a selection of olives, and no fewer than three different varieties of cured meats and four of cheese. As an afterthought she sets out a bottle of elderflower cordial.

You stare at her. “Are you _trying_ to be a walking stereotype?”

“Today? Yes.” She hands you a plate. It’s porcelain. “Just wait until dessert.”

You don’t let stereotypes get in the way of a good meal, and by the time you refill your plate for the third time you admit you may be coming round to her way of thinking.

“Pass the cranberry jam?” Asami says, and suddenly the absurd mundanity is too much for you and you’re laughing so hard Asami has to grab you to stop you rolling into the river. You catch your breath in gasps and glance at her. She has on a look of quiet amusement that lets you know she knows exactly what she’s doing and then you’re both laughing and when you stop you find yourself curled up, quite comfortably, against her side.

You watch the shadow of the tree move ever so slowly across the grass. “Why is there even a pier here?” you say after a while.

“Someone noticed this place was exactly big enough for two people,” Asami says. “So they built one.”

“And so you take all your friends here?”

Asami laughs. “No. Just you.”

“Good answer.” You shift a little and she moves an arm to make you more comfortable. “You mentioned something about dessert?”

Asami clears her throat dramatically. “And now,” she says, “the _pièce de résistance_.” She reaches into the seemingly endless basket and draws out a bowl of strawberries and a container of cream, followed by a bottle of champagne and, of course, two crystal champagne flutes.

“Well,” you say, “you don’t do things by halves. Is there an ice bucket in there?”

“Of course.” She tucks her hair back and winks. “It’s traditional.” The pop of the champagne opening is utterly at odds with your surroundings but Asami pours with flawless indifference to the ant crawling up the stem of one glass. “Strictly speaking we should be back in the punt for this bit,” she says. “But I can’t be bothered to get up right now.” She hands you a glass and smiles. “Merry Christmas.”

*

Asami lets you punt on the way back. The pole is unwieldy and keeps getting stuck in the mud at the bottom of the river, and it takes you five minutes of spinning in circles to figure out how to turn. As you turn the bend back onto the main stretch of river you start to feel good about yourself. You have a rhythm going, and the punt is moving along at a steady clip.

Then the pole gets caught in an overhanging branch, you panic, hold on, the punt keeps moving beneath you, and a second later you’re in the river.

“Always drop the pole,” Asami says helpfully as she fishes you out with the steering paddle. “It’ll take care of itself.”

You sit back, sodden, and right on cue the pole floats past. Asami drags it out of the water and sticks one end in the riverbed, letting it lean against the side of the punt. “Thanks,” you say, “for that timely advice.”

Asami produces a towel out of nowhere and tosses it to you. The sun’s going down and the wind’s no longer innocent, so you dry yourself as quickly as possible, but it’s still cold. Just as you start shivering Asami leans in, hugs you, and wraps a fleece blanket around you both. Your clothes are still wet, and now hers are too, but you feel warmer almost immediately.

“Now I see why you’re dressed so casually,” you say and she shakes with laughter. “Though I resent the fact you apparently expected me to fall in.”

She leans back. One hand smooths your messy, towel-dried hair. “Just being prepared.” She smiles. “Are you warm enough? We should get back before it gets too cold.”

“If I say no,” you say, “will you come back and hold me some more?” You try to raise an eyebrow, but you’re pretty sure you don’t manage it.

Asami laughs. “Nice try.” She stands up, retrieves the pole, and wrestles the punt back away from the riverbank into the centre of the channel. Her clothes are still wet and you’re pretty sure she must be cold but she’s just as efficient as before and you pull the blanket tighter and let yourself watch.

*

You make it back without further incident and Asami marches you up to her rooms and makes you a cup of tea. You sit at one end of her couch in front of the electric fireplace and she lies against you, nursing her own cup.

“Thanks,” you say quietly.

She hums acknowledgement and you can feel her tired contentedness in the way one arm trembles as she pushes herself up a little.

“Korra?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you planning on going to the May Ball?”

You fiddle with the hem of your shirt. “It’s pretty expensive.” You pause. “Maybe next year.”

Asami is silent for long moments. “Do you want to go with me? I have two tickets.”

“Asami…”

“I know it’s expensive.” She looks you in the eye. “But for better or worse, money doesn’t matter to me. And I want to go with you.”

You open your mouth and just like that you can’t think of a single reason to say no. “Okay,” you say before one can occur to you.

For a second Asami is caught off guard. “Only if you’re sure,” she says. “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”

“I know,” you say slowly. You smile. “But… I trust you.” She cocks her head and you continue. “I want to go with you. And if you say you want to go with me and don’t mind paying for my ticket, then I believe you.”

“And that’s that?” She’s looking at you very seriously but you can hear restrained joy in her voice.

“Yeah.” You grin. “That’s that.”

She exhales, relaxes against you again, and takes a sip of tea.

“You okay?” you ask, because she is, but you want to hear it.

“Yes.” She smiles up at you and it does more to warm you than either the fire or the tea. “More than okay.”

*

You wake up in the middle of the night, remnants of tea long gone stone-cold, and Asami makes wordless noises in her sleep. Your clothes are rumpled and your back aches where the couch is too narrow for the two of you. You curl fingers around her shoulder and go back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this will run to two more chapters! No promises on when they will be done, because then I might be timely. :D


	6. Exam Week

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exams suck, and my chapter summaries get increasingly useless.

The holidays are upon you again before you know it, except this time when Tenzin wishes you a happy _study break_ he really seems to mean it, and you try to mean it, too. The Christmas holidays came with the university’s tacit understanding that you wouldn’t _really_ work that much, but now there is no real excuse. And so you stay in college as it empties out and soon find the solitude suits you just fine.

You spend your days in the library slowly learning how to revise. One day you discover the ability of procrastination to make anything interesting when you find yourself reading a succession of ancient drama. The week after that you spend half an afternoon counting all the books on the shelves opposite your table. But in between you construct a growing pile of notes and essay plans and you grudgingly begin to admit that being methodical and academic has its merits.

Asami’s work never sleeps, but then it also never rears its head unnoticed, and so she acts as your touchstone, talking you down in the moments when it all seems so pointless and prodding you into action when you’d never have moved yourself. You see her nearly every day, and soon you think she must be tired of the endless stream of historical anecdotes you relay, but she never complains. One day, without you even noticing, she traps you into talking about geopolitics for an hour and it feels like the most useful thing you’ve done in weeks.

Just once you try and return the favour and ask about her PhD, only to back away in abject horror.

*

“History,” Opal says, “is entirely too full of Thomases.”

It’s the week before the start of term and Opal has come back early to join you in your toils. You’re in her room, leaning against her bed as she stares morosely into the textbook laid open on her desk.

“Think of it this way,” you say. “If you forget someone’s name you can just write ‘Thomas’ and scrawl something which could be any surname.”

Opal considers this. “Is this related to your theory that the last digit of a date can be read as any number if you try hard enough?”

You grin. “Sometimes you just gotta use the techniques Tenzin won’t teach you.” You flip idly through your own abandoned textbook. “Besides, that way you only need to remember the decade.”

Opal groans and slams her book shut. “We’ve been at this long enough. Can we go to the pub? Please?”

Half an hour later you’re in your favourite pub, thankfully still relatively free of stressed students. You’ve dragged Asami along because otherwise you and Opal would just talk about exams the whole time, and even so the conversation veers dangerously close.

Two pints in, Opal asks the question you’ve all been considering. “So,” she says, words only a little slurred. “Who’s more annoying? The ones who brag about how much work they’re doing, or the ones who pretend they don’t have to do any?”

You stare at the table intently. “The ones who brag make everyone else feel bad,” you say slowly. “But the other ones are so _incredibly_ annoying.” Asami raises an eyebrow and you squint at her. “I bet that was you. I bet you were the most annoying pretender _ever_.”

“Maybe. Only who says I was pretending?” She rolls her wine glass between her hands and smiles at you.

You glare at her and turn back to Opal. “I need to think about it more,” you say, then add in a stage whisper, “definitely the pretenders.” Asami snorts mid-sip and coughs to clear her throat, and the feat of breaking her perfect poise makes you glow with satisfaction in a way that neatly complements the alcohol.

*

The last weeks of lectures roll away with a speed that would have been welcome at any other time. A few days before your first exam Tenzin calls you in for one last meeting and you ascend the stairs to his office with nervous calm.

The door opens before you can knock. Your greeting dies on your lips. “Um, hi,” you say.

“Hello.” The girl is young, but you find it difficult to tell exactly how young because her head is completely shaved. She turns away from you, climbs into an armchair, and goes back to the book she’d clearly left open on the armrest.

You stand in the open doorway for a few seconds. She looks up again and glances from you to the open door and back to her book. You start a little, close the door behind you, and sit down at the table with its bowl of chocolates.

“Jinora!” Tenzin calls from the side office. “You can read in here if you’re going to bother my students.”

“I only let her in,” Jinora says, but she picks up her book and smiles shyly at you as she passes. A moment later Tenzin emerges and gestures you to the now vacated armchair.

“Apologies,” he says as he sits down opposite you.

“She your kid?”

“Yes.” Tenzin’s sigh is so pitch-perfectly the long-suffering father you nearly laugh.

“What’s with the…” You gesture vaguely at your head. Tenzin raises his eyebrows below his own mostly-bald pate. “Um, I mean…” You trail off when he looks ever more amused.

“She’s precocious,” he says. “With an interest in Zen Buddhism.” He pauses. “Her siblings are infinitely worse.” This time you do laugh and he clears his throat. “But we’re here to talk about you.”

“Right.” You’re reasonably sure he likes you, less reasonably sure he likes your work, and you can’t help feeling a little nervous. He leafs through a few papers, but you think it’s only for show. He’s not the sort of person to go into a meeting without knowing what he intended to say.

“Korra,” he says. “There are two main types of students we accept when it comes to admissions decisions. First are the people who think 95% is a bad result and scheduled their revision back in Michaelmas.” He smiles. “I hope you won’t mind my saying you’re not in that category.”

“Fortunately for me.” You wonder if it was the right thing to say but he goes on before you can worry too much.

“We can be reasonably sure they’ll do well. More interesting is the second category. Those are the people we take a gamble on. Maybe they don’t look as good on paper, but for one reason or another we think they have the potential to do well.”

“That sounds like me,” you say.

“That’s you. Forgive me, but sometimes it seems like you don’t really care that much, and your work ethic is… questionable.” You wince. “But then sometimes you do care. And at those times you are really quite startlingly good.” Tenzin rubs his chin. “People in that second category are often a bit of a coin flip. Either they end up doing very well, or they never quite manage to deal with the workload.” He looks you in the eye. “But what I want you to take away from this meeting is that we accepted you because we believed you could do it, regardless of the other possibility. And you’ve done nothing to change that opinion.”

You’re not sure what you expected, but this honesty wasn’t it. You’d been told before that if you worked on your flaws you could do well. But no one had ever told you you could do well despite those flaws. It was liberating, like asking for directions on a battered country road and being told not how to find the motorway but that the road you’re already on would get you there too.

“I— thank you,” you say after seconds of silence.

Tenzin smiles. “And I’ll say this. I can’t predict how you’re going to do, but I am very curious to find out.” He shows you out, then stops you on the landing. “One more thing—I’m hosting a garden party for my students next Sunday. I know it’s before your last exam, but if you can spare the afternoon, it might do you some good.”

*

“Right,” you say. “I’ve been invited to _six_ garden parties in the next few weeks. It’s getting weird.”

Asami looks up from her laptop but doesn’t stop typing. “Six? Not bad.”

“Seriously,” you say. “What’s up with that?”

She shrugs. “Garden parties are easy. People are unoriginal. I’d say pick one or two.” She stops typing and considers you. “Is Tenzin doing one? You want the ones that’ll have people you actually care about.”

“That makes sense.” You toy with the tassels on her couch cushion. “What even is a garden party, anyway?”

Asami turns back to her work. “It’s like a party,” she says absently, “but in a garden.”

You throw the cushion at her.

*

The day before your first exam you do nothing. Hard work and revision have only ever gotten you so far: sometimes, you think as you lie in a secluded part of the Fellows’ Garden, you just have to trust to natural flair.

*

“You may begin,” the invigilator says and you take a deep breath and turn over the exam paper. You run down the list of essay questions and fight back the usual stab of uncertainty. Tenzin has drilled it into you: _Don’t panic. Read the question. Read the question again. Attack the question._

You cross off the awful ones, the ones you hadn’t bothered revising for, and that only leaves four. Three to choose out of four: you relax a little. You leave the final choice for later, circle one of the questions, and start planning.

_4\. Using examples from at least two centuries, discuss the impact of revolutionary change on the balance of power._

*

You finish five minutes ahead of time and spend the leftover time tapping your feet impatiently and counting the pipes on the exam hall’s pipe organ.

Then the exam is over and you’re released into bright daylight and the startling revelation that you think you’ve pulled off at least one good answer. The pressure lifts for a moment and though you see it lurking around the next corner you refuse to be ambushed quite yet. You and Opal celebrate with cream teas in the cafe down the road and only then, cheerful and sated, do you round the corner and greet it with open hands.

After that the exams go by in a rush of routine terror, nerves and relief bracketing three hours of frantic scribbling. One day you have both a morning and an afternoon exam and when you come out of the second one, writing hand aching but ultimately triumphant, the worst is over and you show up at Tenzin’s party the next day pleasantly unworried.

“Going well so far?” Opal asks, materialising at your side with two glasses of Pimm’s.

You accept a glass and take a sip. It’s a bizarre mix of flavours, but you’re willing to give it time. “Yes. Maybe. It’s definitely not awful.”

She laughs. “I know that feeling.”

It’s a nice day, and Tenzin has co-opted a corner of the Fellows’ Garden. Food and drinks are set out on a line of tables. You recognise Jinora behind one of them and realise Tenzin has pressed his children into service, and suddenly the strained expressions on the faces of the college staff make sense.

“I feel sorry for them,” you say. 

Opal follows your gaze and laughs. “Jinora’s okay. I spent nearly half an hour talking to her in Tenzin’s room before he noticed I was there.” As you watch the other two kids attempt to juggle a succession of oranges between them. When they get to four they lose control and the oranges go flying. One lands in the bowl of punch while another knocks over a row of mostly empty bottles. “I’ll grant you, those two look like devil spawn,” Opal adds and you stifle a laugh.

You spend the afternoon lounging around on the grass making grand plans to lounge around on the grass when your lives are your own again. Tenzin mingles expertly, offering words of encouragement where they are needed. You raise your empty glass at him when he approaches. “All good over here,” you say. “We have successfully written the required number of essays in each exam.”

“We think some of them have even scaled the heights of mediocrity,” Opal puts in.

Tenzin raises an eyebrow. “Did you remember to write them in English?” You raise a hand to your mouth in mock horror and he smiles. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Good luck.”

You poke forlornly at the slice of cucumber in your erstwhile drink and a few minutes later Jinora comes round with a jug as if summoned by the sight of empty glasses. “Thanks,” you say and she smiles.

“I like your hair,” Opal says idly. “Or, well, lack of hair. I’d never dare.” She grins. “But it’s cute.”

Jinora ducks her head and you get the impression she suddenly wishes she did have some hair to hide behind. She mumbles something that might have been a thank you and hurries over to the next clump of students.

“Strange child,” you say.

Opal laughs. “Aww, I think she’s adorable.”

The afternoon winds down amidst dappled sunlight and egg-and-cress sandwiches. Eventually Opal stretches and sits up. “Well, I don’t think I’m getting much else done tonight, but I may as well make a token effort.” She brushes grass from her trousers. “See you tomorrow. Once more unto the breach and all that.”

You remain a little longer, enjoying this taste of freedom. Then you square your shoulders and leave.

*

You leave the exam hall under a cloud of threatened anticlimax. Then you see Asami waiting for you, incongruously holding an umbrella under the cloudless sky, and freedom hits you full force.

“There are some finalists finishing their last exam in there,” she says by way of greeting. “Let’s get out of here.”

You step out onto the pavement and everything makes sense. The ground is already soaked in cheap champagne, but Asami wields the umbrella ruthlessly and you escape with minimal damage.

“They don’t really care about collateral damage,” Asami says. “One day a box of exam scripts is going to get soaked and the university will get very annoyed, but until then it’s umbrellas or nothing.” She pauses. “And it’s such a waste, too.” 

“I’d like you to note I’m not making fun of you right now,” you say. “But only because I’m really happy.”

Asami laughs and turns to you. “More importantly…” She pulls you into a hug. “Well done, my little fresher.” She smiles at you and all you can do is grin back.

*

Asami takes you out for lunch and you follow in a carefree haze. Afterwards you find abject horror yoked firmly to the routines of exam week and you look at her seriously and say, “So tell me about this engineer stuff you insist on doing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter! Are you excited? I'm excited. 
> 
> (Bald Jinora is cutest Jinora. This has been a public service announcement.)


	7. May Ball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Korra and Asami go to the May Ball together. Things happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are! I know this has been a little slow-paced so far, but hopefully the payout is worth it. :D
> 
> (When I started this I had no intention of the rating going above G. And then I was writing this chapter and thought, oh, better make it T. And, uh, now it's M. Consider yourselves warned.)

“Hold still,” Asami says and you try not to fidget as she pulls your collar this way and that.

“I thought you knew how to tie bowties,” you say.

She gives you a dirty look. “It’s a process. You never get it right first time, not with a new bowtie. There’s a breaking in period.” You roll your eyes as she makes a few more adjustments. Then you roll them again, in case she missed it the first time. You’re pretty sure nothing she’s done has made much of a difference for several minutes now. “There, that should do it,” she says.

Asami steps back and you look at yourself in the mirror. The white tie stands out against the black of your tailcoat, and you have to admit it does look perfectly symmetrical. “What’s even the point? I may as well just wear a clip-on.” Asami stares at you in fully expected horror and you grin. “Are we done yet?”

“Not quite,” she says. “You’re forgetting your cummerbund.” She brandishes an anonymous white piece of cloth.

“My… what?”

“Cummerbund. It goes around your waist.”

“Okay.” You study the cummerbund suspiciously. It’s a sort of sash, a wide strip of white that narrows into straps at either end. “Why?”

“Because you decided you wanted to go in white tie.” Asami reaches around your waist, tying the straps behind your back. The cummerbund blends perfectly into your dress shirt. You consider pointing this out, but think better of it. “Be glad I’m sparing you the top hat and gloves,” she adds.

“Posh people,” you say, “are weird.”

“Maybe,” Asami says, and her right hand brushes against your cheek as she tucks a strand of your hair away. “But I’d say you look pretty incredible right now.” She smiles, and before you can say anything she moves away again. “That’s you done. Try not to undo all my hard work while I get ready.”

You sit at the table and resist the constant urge to play with your collar or your cuffs. Asami disappears up to her bedroom and returns a minute later with her dress. You watch idly as she changes into it, the dark red a bright contrast to the black jacket she has draped over the back of a chair. They’re her colours, you think, just as your lapis cufflinks blink blue out of the enforced monochrome of the rest of your outfit.

“Give me a hand?” she says. You move up behind her and zip her up and she rolls her shoulders and smiles at your reflection in the window. “I’m ready.”

You wrap your arms around her waist and she starts a little, then relaxes back against you. You rest your head on her shoulder, awkward against her height, and she covers your clasped hands with hers. Together you watch the gathering queue outside in Roku Court.

“Come on,” she says eventually. “We have a ball to go to.”

*

The queue winds its way between patches of grass, and you join it near the middle of Roku Court.

A woman sits on the steps of the fountain in the centre of the court. She is serenading you with a harp.

“Intimidated yet?” Asami asks, and you stick your tongue out at her. Then she snags a pair of champagne glasses from a passing staff member and by the time the queue finally starts moving you’re looking around for another.

You entertain yourself by reading the programme. “How are we supposed to make any decisions?” you say after it becomes apparent there is more programme than you have time to get through.

Asami laughs. “Don’t bother. We’ll play it by ear.”

Then you present your invitations and you’re through the bottleneck and into the ball proper. A string quartet in the cloisters of Yangchen Court picks up where the harpist left off, and the court itself is dominated by a large marquee full of food stalls.

Your eyes light up and Asami tugs at your sleeve. “Come on,” she says. “Best to get in ahead of the crowd.”

The stalls offer an eclectic mix of food, hog roasts and burgers and mezze platters and a dozen other things. You have a little of everything while Asami attacks the wide array of salads and grilled meats. Afterwards you have an oyster each, just for the experience.

“That was strange,” Asami says as she puts the shell back down. “Not unpleasant. But I’m not sure I ever want to experience it again.”

You shrug and have another one.

You wander the grounds of the college then, seeing everything on offer. One bar serves nothing but gin and tonics in four different varieties. A punt full of ice holds dozens of champagne bottles and the woman in charge opens them with a sword to shouts of encouragement and enthusiastic applause. Three distinct stages dot the grass, each with its own programme of music and comedy, the largest big enough to host an audience of several hundred.

Tucked away on the South Lawn next to the river a small tent houses a chocolate fountain. Your gaze follows it involuntarily as you walk by. “No,” Asami says. “You’re not getting chocolate all over yourself before we even get started.”

A photographer has set up shop and her queue stretches up and down the path along the edge of the lawn. You watch couple after couple captured in picture-perfect happiness. Asami looks at you and hesitates. Then you shake your head and she says “Oh, thank god,” and you burst out laughing. She places an arm on your shoulder to steady you and you offer her your arm, formally, in response. She smiles, and you move back into the main body of the ball on each other’s arms.

Then you find the fairground.

“Step right up! Step right up! Test your— oh, hey, Korra!” Bolin waves at you, grinning, one hand on the shaft of a large mallet.

“Hi, Bolin,” Asami says as you approach. “Not behind a bar? I thought you liked the work.”

“I like big hammers, too.” He puffs out his chest. “I am a man of many talents.” He winks and you can’t help but laugh. “So, care to give it a try?” He nods at the contraption behind him.

“I think I’ll pass,” Asami says, smiling.

You eye the device. “Is there a prize?”

“There is a _fabulous_ prize,” Bolin says.

“Well then,” you say, and stick your hand out.

Bolin passes the mallet over. “Be careful, it’s pretty heavy. It’s more about how you hit it than brute strength, so you—”

You ignore him, heft the mallet, take two measured steps forward, and swing it in a smooth arc. The head hits the base of the machine with satisfying solidity and a second later the puck strikes the top and the bell chimes.

“—or I guess brute strength is good too.” You hand the mallet back and Bolin blinks rapidly. “Wow. I think I’m in love.”

“Sorry,” Asami says sweetly. “She’s unavailable.” Her smile dares you to object.

Bolin laughs and holds his hands up. “One prize, coming right up.”

The prize, of course, is a plush kitten and you present it to Asami with a flourish. “For you.”

“Very chivalrous,” she says. “I will treasure it always.” 

Bolin clears his throat. “Sure I can’t tempt you?”

Asami glances up at the target you’d hit so easily. “Why would I try something I literally can’t beat Korra at?” She looks around. “Is that a shooting gallery?”

Bolin grins again. “Of course.”

One thing leads to another and then Asami is shooting. Between her ball gown and the rows of cheap tin targets it should look ridiculous, but of course Asami only looks ridiculous when she intends to, and her marksmanship is anything but.

“A prize for the lady!” Bolin rummages around behind the counter. “A polar bear!” Asami looks a little confused at the giant mass of white thrust into her arms.

You squint at it. “Looks more like a dog.”

She recovers quickly and offers it to you. “For you.” She smiles. “Mine’s bigger.”

“Sometimes,” you say, “you are incredibly infuriating.”

“Only when you are first.”

“And now I’m stuck carrying a giant polar bear dog thing around with me for the rest of the ball.”

“Uh, I can keep those for you?” Bolin looks from you to Asami. “I can bring them over tomorrow.”

You glare at Asami a moment longer, for good measure, then turn to Bolin and hand over the polar bear. “Thanks,” you say and Asami gives him her cat with the manner of someone who had been intending to do that all along.

Then Bolin waves goodbye and Asami spots the dodgems and you become aware that her love of cars apparently extends to carnival rides. You see Opal in the queue ahead of you, and within ten seconds of settling into the passenger seat she has hit you a glancing blow on the side, laughing as she drives by, and Asami spends the rest of the time actively hammering into the back of her dodgem in revenge.

“Korra!” Opal yells across to you amid shrieks of laughter. “Call her off! Call her off!”

Asami looks down at you and raises an eyebrow, and you wonder how she manages to keep from crashing into the side of the arena.

You lean against her shoulder. “She deserves it.”

Afterwards you go on the swingboats, for completeness’ sake, and you are quite sure you’re going a foot higher than any of the other pairs.

“Sometimes,” Asami says when you get off, rubbing rope-raw hands together, “we are incredibly infuriating.”

Then it’s time for the fireworks and you take one look at the crowd gathering on the lawn and decide to watch from inside Yangchen Court instead. You find a table, iron-wrought and precious, near a champagne bar and sip in silence as the fireworks unfold above the roof. The court is eerily quiet all of a sudden, as if the display was being put on just for you.

“So.” You grin at Asami as the fireworks start to die down. “I’m unavailable, am I?”

She smiles back. “Aren’t you?”

The answer is a lot simpler than you expected. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

It’s past midnight and you’re peckish again and so you find your way to the old combination room, full of cream upholstery and massive oil paintings, where there is a light programme of classical music and opera and, more importantly, a selection of bread and cheese. Asami lies with her head in your lap, legs thrown casually over the side of a couch, and you find yourself enjoying the music more than you expected.

Even so you grow bored quite quickly. You wander from place to place, sitting in on stand-up comedy until it grows stale, watching a series of increasingly incompetent magicians, playing a game of croquet in which only one of you knows the rules, dancing to music you’ve never heard of but which seems to fit uniquely into the bizarre shape of the May Ball, always together. At three in the morning you head for the refuge of a tent away from all the main stages where you have tea and cakes and scones and lie on beanbags in search of second winds.

“One last hurrah?” Asami says eventually.

“You got something in mind?”

“Well,” she says, “ever been to a ceilidh?”

And so you find yourself, at four o’clock in the morning, in a ballroom learning the increasingly esoteric names of steps to a dozen equally esoteric traditional dances. The lively music, the constant spinning, and the sheer absurd joy of it conspire to deceive your tired body, and you feel more awake than you have in hours. In the breaks between dances you collapse on the floor, flushed and out of breath, and lean on each other, taken by a giddy exuberance that has nothing to do with alcohol. Then the man who calls instructions from the stage bids you stand up and you throw yourself into another dance thinking always that next time you will be too exhausted to get up again.

You stumble out of the ballroom and into grey early morning light, drunk on tiredness. Asami keeps you steady. “Just the survivor’s photo now. I’ve never felt the need. You?”

“Bed, please,” you say and Asami laughs and steers you in the direction of Roku Court.

On the way you pass the chocolate fountain.

*

The first thing you do when you get to Asami’s room is untie the damn cummerbund and throw it in a corner. Your tailcoat follows, but with respect, folded over the back of a chair. Then your dress shoes.

Asami watches, amused, as she removes her own shoes and socks and rubs life back into her feet. “That bad?”

“You try dancing a bloody jig in this,” you say. “At least you only have one layer.”

She laughs, and then you’re ascending one last flight of stairs to her bedroom and you collapse on her bed. But the light through her windows is whispering all sorts of lies in your ears, and you feel yourself growing less tired as the sun rises.

You sit up and face Asami across the double bed. “Hey?”

It’s still dark enough that you can’t see her expression clearly, but you can tell she smiles. “Yeah?”

“I— thank you. I had a wonderful evening. Night. Morning. Whatever.”

She reaches up, wipes stray chocolate off your cheek, then licks the finger clean. “For you, Korra, it was the utmost pleasure.”

You sit watching each other as the room grows steadily lighter. There is an image in your head where contentment lives, and it’s been long enough that you’re not sure any more at what point it had changed from _you and I_ to _we_. And then, because it has and because there are times when unsaid things are unsaid and times when they are not, you say, “Asami. Can I… Can I tell you something?”

This time her smile is clear as newborn day. “Anything.”

You take a breath. "I'm glad it's not complicated," you say. "I'm glad we don't need to prove anything, or justify anything."

Asami yawns and in that moment you know she understands. "Plus we avoided the photo queue." She reaches up to straighten your bowtie. "But there are things we could do that have nothing to do with proof or justifications." She raises an eyebrow in challenge and smiles, just a little, and you laugh, lean forward, and kiss her.

And of course she kisses back because this is what you've been for months. You taste champagne and her lips are chapped from the night but she is the closest friend you have ever had and none of the details matter. You wonder that you'd ever qualify that term with a weaselly little word like "just", because Asami is your best friend and the woman you're in love with, and the one is inseparable from the other.

“Sorry,” you say when you pull back, out of breath. “Maybe I should have checked first.”

But it’s okay, you know, and “It’s okay,” she says. Her fingers rub small circles into your shoulders and along the line of your collarbone. “And this,” she adds, “is why you’re not wearing a clip-on.” You have time enough to glance down and realise she’s managed to get your bowtie undone without your noticing. Then she tugs you forward by the ends and you don’t have time for anything but kissing her.

“I’ve wanted to do that pretty much from the day we met,” Asami says when you break apart again. She’s breathing hard and strands of her hair are coming undone of their usual perfection. Suddenly you think there’s nothing you want more than to see her flustered, to push her into greater disarray, and to know that you had caused it where all others had failed.

“Yeah?” You trace the outline of her jaw, admiring the contrast of darker skin on light, and grin when her breath catches. “Why didn’t you do it earlier?” You let your other hand tangle in her hair. “You had plenty of… opportunities.” Your voice drops on the last word and you swear you feel her shiver ever so slightly.

“I’m a postgrad,” Asami says in something approaching her normal tone. “You’re a fresher. I didn’t want to take advantage of you.” You manage not to burst out laughing but your mouth twitches and Asami says, “What?”

“That literally never occurred to me.”

“I’m older than you.” Asami sounds defensive. “It would have been unethical.”

“Maybe in university years. You’re not that much older in real life years.” You run your free hand down her back and nearly crow in triumph when she bites her lip. “Good thing our positions weren’t reversed, though.” You smile a smile that is everything but innocent. “I don’t think I have it in me to be that… ethical.”

You press your fingers against the back of her neck and push, slowly but inexorably, until you can feel Asami’s breath on your face. “I think I’m over it,” she whispers, voice edging on ragged, and for a second she’s nearly back in control.

You almost let her. Instead you push her down on the bed, one leg pinning her in place, and tangle both hands in her hair. Asami’s hands are on your back without the slightest hesitation and she pulls you down the rest of the way and then you’re kissing her again, hard, and her breath comes in irregular gasps.

Asami’s fingers find their way under your shirt and you close your eyes and focus on the sensation of her hands against your back, the soft pleasure of her teeth on your lips, and you almost feel embarrassed but for the lines of subtle fire left behind wherever she touches you.

Eventually you break away and open your eyes, propping yourself up on your elbows. Asami’s lipstick is smudged and strands of hair criss-cross her face and you’re not sure anyone has ever looked more appealing.

“Korra.” Asami’s voice is strained. “Are you sure—”

“Fuck, Asami,” you whisper, running a finger along the curve of her ear. “What do I need to do to get you to just _take advantage of me?_ ”

Asami’s expression shifts then and she does something with her legs and you’re reminded once again how strong she really is because suddenly you’re on your back and she’s on top of you, hair curtaining down to brush your cheeks with splendid grace. “That,” she says in a voice that makes you suppress a shudder, and then she settles her weight on you and you can’t help but groan in anticipation.

You try to lean into her but she pushes you back down, gently but firmly, and then her teeth are grazing your earlobe and you moan against your will. She trails kisses down your neck and her smile when she looks at you again is pure predator. In response you run your hands up her back to the top of her dress and undo the first inch of her zip.

Asami makes a visible effort to control herself. “Korra,” she says. “One last time. We don’t have to. We don’t need to prove anything.”

You drop all pretense and smile. “I know.” You kiss her, soft and reassuring. “That’s why I want to.” In one smooth motion you unzip her dress the rest of the way. She’s totally still for a second, then gets up off you. Before you can complain, she strips her dress off in hurried, elegant movements, and then she’s back on top of you and her skin is hot beneath your hands.

Asami undoes the buttons of your shirt, slow and deliberate, and when she kisses you again you don’t care that you moan into her mouth when her hands caress your sides. Her fingers play around your waistline and your hands tighten around her back as she unbuttons your trousers. She glances at you, eyes caught between lust and compassion, and you nod, once, and raise yourself off the bed so she can pull your trousers down to your knees.

She advances back up your body and you whimper as her fingers skitter along the top of your underwear. Then she finally touches you and even through the cloth the sensation makes you draw a ragged breath. Her fingers trace casual circles and you fight to keep still and then she slips her hand beneath the elastic and breathes, “Okay?”, and in response you pull your underwear down to join your trousers and spend seconds kicking them clear of you both.

You kiss her, half to wipe the smile off her face and half to stifle the noises you’re making, but you succeed in doing neither because her fingers are inside you, on you, and you can _feel_ her smile widen when you moan into the kiss. She wraps her other arm around you and strokes your shoulder and you gasp because your skin is hyper-sensitive all over and your muscles twitch as much to the tune of one hand as the other.

When you come Asami holds you, tenderly, and her lingering touches bring you back to yourself in time with your laboured breathing.

“Good?” she says.

“Good,” you reply in a falsely steady voice. You take a small breath and wait until your heart slows to a canter. “Now get on your back.” She does, and you smile through the delicious tiredness and say, “Take off your bra.” When she complies and tosses it, red and black and lacy, aside you pause for a second, then reach behind your back and unclasp your own, because fair is fair.

“Leave the shirt,” she says before you can divest of it as well and you look her in the eye and shrug the sleeves back on your shoulders.

You lean over her, letting your hair trail over her naked chest and stomach, and she shivers when you hook your thumbs around her underwear and pull it down until she can get it the rest of the way off. Asami lies before you fully nude, every inch of her poised in silent arousal, and finally your body betrays you and you feel yourself blushing furiously.

“Shy, little fresher?” she whispers, and you swallow hard.

“ _Still_ infuriating,” you say, but your heart beats faster and Asami’s smile goes straight to the base of your spine with languid ease.

Asami hums agreement. “And you love it.” She wraps her legs around you and closes her eyes.

In lieu of a response you make yourself comfortable between her legs. You’re still the length of three heartbeats, long enough for Asami to open her eyes, meet your gaze, and nod. Then you lean down and she hisses when your tongue meets slick, flushed skin. “Higher,” she breathes, and you obey. Her hands go to the back of your neck and guide you and the first time she moans, louder than you’ve ever let yourself be, it feels better than any orgasm you’ve ever had. You let your hands wander over her stomach, let yourself feel every tiny tremor you draw from her, and her fingers thread behind your head and pull you closer.

You glance up at Asami and her profile when she tilts her head back, lips half-parted, is a near-perfect thing made perfect by her tangled sheets.

“Korra—” she says and the tiny gap between her voice and total control speaks to how far gone she is. Then she curls her fingers in your hair and comes, loud and shuddering, and you fight to keep the grin off your face until she pushes you away gently and you know your job is done.

“You’re right,” you say with all the considerable smugness you can muster. “Yours _is_ bigger.” She laughs in unexpected delight and winds your hair around her fingers.

“Only when you’re involved,” she says and even through your tiredness you feel yourself shiver.

Asami lies on the bed, flushed and flustered, body arranged in perfect disarray, and of course she looks utterly beautiful and utterly poised, and of course you wouldn’t have it any other way. You move up the bed, put an arm around her, and she presses herself against you. Together the sweat cools on your bodies and your breathing evens out.

*

“Korra?” Asami says, years and seconds later.

“Mm?”

“I love you.”

A feeling runs through your body where your bare skin touches Asami’s, like a full-body stretch encapsulated in the small movements of your arms as you pull her closer.

“I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> And that's it! Hopefully I'll be back sooner or later (probably later) with something else, but until then, thanks so much for reading, everyone - your comments and kudos have been much appreciated. :)


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